


sundering sea

by lechatnoir



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2020-10-05 09:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lechatnoir/pseuds/lechatnoir
Summary: a series of vignettes / multiple snippets of reincarnation AUs, or, the one where Aqua and Terra will find each other again, through the sundering sea and the stars as their guide.





	1. i. riptide

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me about these two on twitter @requiempluie.

It’s the hum of metal ringing against metal that echoes in her ears - she can’t think tangible thoughts, just moves as quick as she can to dodge the keyblade swinging at her with the intent to harm, to kill. Anyone else would have kept their distance, fired off spells and kept Terra at bay -  _ ‘What he doesn’t make up in speed, he makes up in strength’  _ \- the thought flickers in her mind before she dodges another swing and retaliates. The keyblades sing as if in tune, metal against metal and she  _ pushes _ \- anything to break the momentum he has on her, to find an opening to disarm and secure, but not to kill. 

_ ‘You can’t kill him because you’ve always been weak of heart , you’re fond of him’ --  _ there it is again, the voice that wraps around her in the dead of the night, like the shadows that chased her through the realm, always waiting, always watching - never leaving. 

But this isn’t Terra - not really - she can see him in flashes and brief scattering seconds where he wrestles for control but it’s not  _ him _ \- Xehanort’s got the upper hand and he’s twisting his face into a sneer as she stumbles and halts for a second to catch her breath, wisps of hair floating where his keyblade nearly took her head off just moments before. It’s the ringing of metal that dances in her head when she kicks his legs from underneath him when he gets too close and sends him tumbling to the ground, her own blade pointed against the tip of his throat as she pins him down against the ground, chest rising as she tries to calm her hummingbird heart and let the anger simmer instead of bubbling over and eating her alive in the moment. 

Her eyes meet his and she sees him flicker back and forth - molten yellow to brown and back again and she thinks of the way glass reflects the light, broken hollow memories of summer rains and training with wooden swords and kisses stolen behind the garden bushes. She hears him laugh, low and rumbling in a voice that’s like  _ his  _ but  _ isn’t -  _ stares into the golden eyes that meet hers as she pushes her keyblade down, down, down, till she can hear nothing but how heavy they’re both breathing and she doesn’t think twice about leaning down until she hovers over him, lips a hair breath away from his own and he doesn’t break eye contact as he watches her move, eyes flickering until she meets warm brown with her own and leans in to close the gap. 

“Aqua -- “ Terra whispers and she lets out a laugh, bone tired and drained and she wants nothing more than to rest but she _can’t _ not when they’re so close to bringing him back from the darkness and she feels exhausted and aware of how close they are because how _else_ was she supposed to disarm and take Xehanort by surprise? She had to get in close but now she’s _too close_ and he can snap back into control at any moment but Terra looks at her as if she holds up the moon and stars and she can’t do anything other than dance away from him - she _tries_ to but he’s got a hand pressed against her wrist, warm against the butterfly flutter of her pulse and she hesitates to move before he’s pushing against her keyblade to get close, skin pricking where the metal digs in , lips chasing hers as she gasps and whispers - “Don’t --” 

Terra’s always been the dependable one - strong, malleable to the darkness but determined anyway to protect those that mattered to him regardless of the cost. It’s why he keeps pushing Xehanort down, down down, buying time to gather the thoughts that have been hidden behind the murky fog that’s been his head whenever Xehanort’s in control - like looking through glasses that have been thoroughly fogged up and not being able to see things clearly - but he pushes him down with what strength he has and breathes in. It’s crystal clear really - cut the darkness out and Xehanort should be gone - and he looks at Aqua who looks as if she’s been carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and he sees her crystal clear --  _ how did he miss her? How did he not hear what his heart was telling him, she was right there in front of him all along ---  _ and smiles up at her as he presses close. 

“You need to cut me, Aqua” 

The words take her out of her stupor and her eyes narrow, keyblade moves to lock him in place and she takes a breath before staring into his eyes. “What do you mean?” she whispers, mind racing and she can’t -- she has to. 

“You need to cut the darkness from me.” 

She remembers the hum of the rain as the clouds blocked out the sun in the sky, remembers her heart rattling in her chest, a tempo that only he knew the tune to, no one else. 

She can’t remember who moved first, just remembers the glow of the blade as she moved it down, and the smell of rain, hanging heavy as the darkness swarmed around them, watched as the light and the shadows danced around each other, white noise and static roars ringing in her ears. 

_ “Aqua - “  _ he’d whispered her name, a lifeline in the storm that they were in - she’d watched as the darkness ebbed away from him, and the light swallowed him up - slowly , piece by piece, until there was nothing left but his wayfinder, flickering yellow in the light. 

_ I’ll find you again -  _ he had said, moving so that her blade dug into him even more, hands shaking because she  _ didn’t want this  _ \-- but it was the only way. 

She remembers the smell of the rain, a hummingbird heart, and the rage of the sundering sea against the shore - 

She’ll find him again and bring him back home, hummingbird heart and all. 


	2. fragmentary whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which neither of them can sleep, and the darkness hums far too much under their skins, where chamomile tea and late night kitchen conversations are brought in between terra and aqua.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crawls back into this hELLO!!! have another chapter update, i'm working on hopefully getting on a biweekly schedule for updates hopefully.
> 
> please note: this chapter has vivid depictions of panic/dissociation and anxiety, as well as negative/intrusive thoughts.

The worst of their nightmares didn’t happen to them during the day - didn’t happen in a fight where they didn’t have the chance to think, just react, more muscle memory than logic as the heartless swarmed around them and one world’s darkness problem led to another goose chase three worlds over. _ (Repeat repeat repeat). _They’d say that a war never truly left you once you were in one, and the darkness never fully went away either - it would sneak up when they least expect it, in the way the anger flashed hot deep inside Terra’s chest, scattered with scars and sleepless nights, in the way that Aqua would shut everyone out, leaving herself alone with the darkness and feeling as if ice flowed through her veins, more statue than human. 

Sometimes, they’d lose track of themselves - a moment of silence would make their heads spin, thoughts running wild with smoky tendrils of you will never see the light again scratching in their heads, snuffing out what little hope they’d manage to save when they had the darkness ripped out from inside of them. It wasn’t in the loud moments that would throw both Terra and Aqua off-kilter, it was the quiet, in-between moments - the sort where the sunlight would flicker through the windows and it was too quiet in either one of their heads? It felt ominous, as if at any second, they’d be swallowed up whole by the darkness that lurked inside the corners of their hearts. Getting him back almost killed both of them - how many spells did she have to weave together with Ven to get Xehanort out of him? How many times was she a hair’s breath away from getting struck down by his blade? They’d dance the dance between their own visions and past deeds, wake up in cold sweat and a howl on their lips but inside they still felt cold and hollow. To remember the warmth that lurked inside each of them took strength, and on some days, it felt like that strength never existed. 

There are nights where neither of them can sleep, it’s where Terra finds her, in the dimly lit kitchen, boiling the teapot as a snowstorm rages outside. There’s a song that she’s humming, something fragmented and broken, like a memory you couldn’t quite remember all the way through, half faded colors and faded out scents but it’s still there, in pieces. 

“Can’t sleep?” he says, half leaning against the doorway in a faded shirt and sweatpants he managed to find in one of the piles of clothes in his room, one arm crossed over the other as if he could shrink in size when she turns to look at him, a surprised smile on her lips. “Haven’t been able to sleep in a while, figured I’d make some tea.” Aqua says, before turning back to the kettle and grabbing another cup - “You want some? We’ve still got chamomile, it’s supposed to help calm the nerves.” 

He watches her work, methodic and familiar sounds making the early night hour seem almost soft, that odd in-between mood of when it’s pitch black and the winter snow had just finished falling. It takes a minute for her words to reach him, doesn’t realize she’s talking until she places a hand on his arm and says his name again -- “Terra?” It’s then that he jumps a little, hyperfocusing on how warm her hand feels against his arm -- “Sorry… got a little lost in my own head for a second there, Aqua. I’d love some, maybe it’ll help with the nerves that keep jumping around in my head this late at night.”he says, tilting his head down, a bit bashful _(‘soft, weak, is what you are’ the voice whispers in his head)._ She gives him a smile and he thinks that it’s warmer than the sun, lets her pull him towards the kitchen table before gently pushing him down into a seat as the kettle whistles. If it wasn’t for the whispers in his head, he’d think that this is … good. _Home-like, domestic. Safe,_ he thinks to himself, watching as Aqua pours the hot water into two cups (_hand painted gifts from Ven, one with forget me nots and pink tulips for Aqua, and gladiolus mixed with snapdragons for Terra_) and places his in front of him before curling up on the chair across from him and sighing, the silence between them stretching out, shadows dancing in the corners of the kitchen. 

_(You’re weak and pathetic - what’s this about some tea? What tea can help erase years of losing yourself to the darkness, you daft girl the voices hiss inside her head, and it’s as if she’s in the Realm of Darkness again, shadows drawing closer and closer, clawing at her and tearing apart what light she had left -- )_

“Something on your mind?” -- its Terra’s voice that cuts through the whispers as they hiss inside of her head, but she wasn’t going to tell him that -- she needed to be the anchor in the sea, the lighthouse in the storm - safe and reliable and _dependable,_ isn’t that what everyone expects of her? They don’t want the simmering anger that thrums beneath her skin, the way she wants to cast Thundaga to chase away the darkness, sparks crackling at her fingertips, the way she remembers the venom in her voice, half broken fragments of memories of when she let the darkness take over -- 

“It’s -- nothing. Don’t worry about it, nothing a little sleep can’t fix.” Aqua says, tossing in a smile for extra measure, and she hears how _brittle_ the lie is, how weak her voice sounds - there’s no weight to her words, only a sense of _ runawayrunawayrunaway_ clawing at her throat as she looks at Terra, takes a sip of the tea that burns down her throat, and tries not to let the chaos lurking beneath her skin show. He’s quiet, blows on the steam before looking out the window, before piping up again -- “You hear it too, don’t you? The darkness. Feels like there’s something crawling out of your skin, right?” He’s looking at her now, and for a second she thinks that his eyes flicker gold, that they _failed,_ and it wasn’t Terra sitting in front of her, before she blinks again, and nods. She doesn’t move when he reaches for her hand _ (solidwarmsofthome),_ lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding as he laces their fingers together and brings her hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand before leaning his cheek against their joint hands. She doesn’t fight him, doesn’t want to fight him and this warmth that he’s gifting to her -- but the whispers stop trying to claw out of her throat, and she doesn’t fight it when he tugs her towards him, slowly uncurling from her spot and moving closer to him, until he shifts their hands and pulls her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her and just holds her. 

They don’t talk about it out loud, the whispers that bury themselves under their skin, but they let themselves steal the quiet moments from each other, grounding themselves when it feels as if everything is ready to swallow them whole and make them disappear into the ether. It’s as if she’s weaving together one of her spells, the way she moves so that she can card her fingers through his hair and press feather light kisses to his face, watching him as his face is dusted with a pink tinge as his cheeks warm up.

Their tea is cold by the time they remember it, but the whispers are quiet for now, and they’re too busy relearning the contours of each other’s faces, soft kisses that grow from one to two, lips chasing each other as Terra hums and Aqua lets out a quiet laugh, the sky changing from murky darkness to the early pale colors of pastel purples, orange and red.


	3. ocean hymns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, Aqua and Terra return to the sea, try to piece together fragments of their memories, and try to hold together what little bits of themselves they have left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy , I thought I'd get to some sort of schedule with this, but then uh, everything sort of hit the fan.  
So here I am, with another edition to this little fic, and maybe more along the way? 
> 
> Find me on twitter @requiempluie. 
> 
> content warnings: this chapter has a lot of unreality and dissociating happening, along with anxiety and trauma-responses, so please take care.

Somehow they find themselves back on Destiny Islands after what feels like years and years of wandering between the light and the dark, and losing themselves in hazy patches of who they used to be, taught to be, turned out to be.

_It feels like the war is over, isn’t it? _ They whisper to themselves, hands ghosting over dusty rooms with nothing but ghosts lingering in the corners. Aqua hasn’t slept in days - _ weeks _ \- but she shakes the tiredness that seems to cling to her and puts on a smile on her face, rolls her shoulders and stares out the window to where she can see the sea, the sky, the sun.

There’s a song that tugs at her heart and she doesn’t know what’s calling her, what’s whispering in her heart to _ move _ but she moves, one foot in front of the other, until she finds herself in front of the sea and the song inside of her heart _ swells _, until she can’t hear her own thoughts, only the crashing of waves, the screams of seagulls circling above, and a song that envelopes her heart in what feels like icy coldness.

Taking off her shoes, Aqua tosses them somewhere nearby onto the sand, and sinks down into the hot sand, her breath coming out ragged and shallow and she doesn’t notice it at first, how the thoughts seize her and it feels as if her head is made of white noise, of static.

_ You are not safe you are not safe, you are one step from crumbling like a tower of cards and who is going to pick you up? A Keyblade Master? When you can’t even get past the whispers of darkness that still lurk inside of you? Pathetic, that's what you are. How many years have you spent wandering in the darkness? Your hope is as fickle as you are weak. _

Faster and faster, the thoughts run jack-rabbit quick in her mind as she stares out to the ocean, and there’s some part of her that’s trying to figure out _ who _ she is, and _ where_ is she? Where one question bleeds into the next and the panic swells up inside of her chest, heavy and _burning_ as if someone had cast Firaga straight at her. She hears the waves and the seagulls but she doesn’t really _ hear _ them, there’s a ringing pitch in her ears as she stares and feels _something_ claw its way up from inside her chest. 

She doesn’t notice when Terra sits down next to her, muttering a quiet _”Hey.”_ that echoes faintly in her ears, amidst the ringing, doesn’t realize that his hands are _ warm _ until he’s gently pressing down on her arms, slowly moving them up and down, warm against her icy goosebump flesh. 

Terra’s voice is soft but _ warm _ as he looks at Aqua’s frozen form beside him, watches the way her hands shake and twitch as if she doesn’t know what to _ do _ with them, like a wind up tin solder who’s coils have gotten scrambled and out of tune, and he _ knows_ how this feels like, this feeling that is more like sludge than anything else, that weighs heavy and drags you to the bottom of the ocean, suffocating and overwhelming, murky like the darkness that takes a hold of you, washes away your sense of time – he _ knows _, which is why when Ventus had run up to him after a training session, saying that Aqua’s been acting _ weird_, he’d gotten up from pouring over the new training lessons they had been working on and went looking for her. 

He can tell that she doesn’t hear him, so he tries again, this time pressing down firmly with his hands on her arms and turning his body towards her, watching her face and memorizing the way her eyes dart back and forth without really looking at him, speaks quietly as to not startle her and says _ “Hey, Aqua. Look at me.” _

Something in her stills as he speaks, and her eyes stop darting from side to side, less jack-rabbit wild and it’s as if she’s coming out of a hazy fog that she doesn’t realize she’s been in. The noises hit her first – more crisp, clearer, as if before she was just hearing things through muffled ears, she can taste the salt in the air from the ocean and her breath rattles in her lungs but she blinks once, twice, before realizing that she’s not alone -- _ Terra’s here? _ \- scrambles in her head and she blinks again as she realizes that he’s holding her but keeping a distance, anchoring her but not suffocating her with sensory overload. "What are you -? " she says, shaking her head slightly in confusion. 

He smiles at her and moves to take off his own boots, digging his feet into the sand while he talks, keeps his hands busy as she watches. "Ven was worried about you, so I came looking. Something told me I'd find you here, and I guess my hunch was right." There's a smile that slips onto his face, lazy and warm and she watches as he flops down on the sand, letting out a sigh as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his chest and only just _ now _ managed to relax. She watches as the sand morphs around his body, sinking underneath his weight and the only thing that she manages to say is "You're going to get sand in your hair if you do that.", and a laugh escapes her without her realizing. It's as if the heavy weight on her chest is slowly getting less heavy, and her breathing isn't as ragged as earlier. She watches him for a moment, then closes her eyes and listens to the crashing of waves again, this time they don’t cause the static in her head to overwhelm her, but instead anchor her. They haven’t talked about this sort of thing – touching and changing their boundaries with one another - but for how long they’ve known each other and danced around each other, it’s nice to feel Terra’s presence next to her, solid and real, and _safe_. 

She still has her eyes closed when she feels his hand gently brush again her own as she rests them on her knees and she feels him tug her closer to where he is. “What are you –” another tug and she finds herself leaning backwards, opening her eyes as she watches Terra pull her close to him, feels the warm sand shift, course against her skin as he holds her lazily against his side, warm and whole and alive. 

“Just c’mere, Aqua.” he says, and she buries her face in the crook of his neck and says “Okay.” 

ii. 

She doesn’t know how much time has passed that they lay there together but she feels warm and the goosebumps have disappeared from her arms and she feels like she’s dozing off, letting the ocean air wash over her and she thinks to herself of just how lucky she is to have been able to get Terra back. Because this isn’t new – this sort of support and taking care of each other – they’ve been doing it in different ways and forms ever since they were kids, but it feels like it has more meaning now, more weight to the sort of tango they’ve been dancing all along. They’ve both lost track of how many times they’d wake up gasping for breath and somehow find themselves in the kitchen, quietly measuring tea and sugar and heating up water to sit together in silence that makes things more heavy, more meaningful in their ragged hearts. Taking care of each other has never been hard for either of them – but crossing this sort of line, and rewriting the boundaries to something else entirely – that was something that they didn’t really talk about, ragged hearts and all. 

“What’s on your mind?” Terra’s voice is warm, syrup sweet in the way it washes over her as she listens to his heartbeat, one hand resting on his chest, and she thinks that she could stay her for a long time if it meant never leaving _ this _ \- this sense of calm and _ peace_ and she wants to chase this feeling until she can devour it whole and never forget what it tastes like. She feels a bit dazed (and for all Aqua knows, it may be the way the sun is hitting her) but just shakes her head and moves so that she can press her lips against his, warm and solid and alive and the way he lets out a soft _ “Oh”_ has her smiling as she kisses him lazily, humming against his lips as he threads his fingers through her hair and has one arm around her waist, and she can get used to this.>/p>

Aqua lets out a grumble when she realizes that she can feel sand _everywhere_ and pulls away from kissing Terra to mutter “You’re going to get more sand in my hair if you do that.”, watching him stare back at her before he slowly breaks into a laugh, quiet at first, then louder as he shakes his head in glee. “Well, in that case we should take a dip in the ocean, wash the sand off, what’dya say?” He’s already moving around her, getting up off of the sand and holds his hand out to her in an open offer, waiting. She rolls her eyes, but laughs as he tugs her forward and then Terra breaks into a run, pulling Aqua along with him and she lets out a shriek of surprise as they crash into the waves and she latches onto the sound of Terra’s laugh as he lets the waves pummel him, hands warm as they hold her close. 

(Aqua thinks that the seafoam and spark of the sea make Terra’s eyes gleam in the light, a kaleidoscope of colors that she could get lost in, trying to trace them all, fragments of stained glass and something like _ home_. ) 

iii. 

By the time the sea lets them go, the sun has set, and the wind is warm and salty against her skin, and slowly Terra tugs her out of the sea, clothes wet and heavy as he sloshes forward with her in tow. They watch the sea turn into a midnight blue, and she reaches up to steal one more kiss from him, a question in his face as he watches her lean in and kiss him – Terra’s almost as still as a statue, the way he holds himself still as if at any moment she’d startle and break into a run – but he relaxes when she pushes forward and wraps her arms around his waist, leaning up on her tip toes to kiss him again, and again. 

His voice is shaky when she pulls away from him “What—what was that for?” and he thinks she captures the way the moon shine glitters on the ocean waves with the way her eyes gleam with delight, thinks of old hymns that he’d hear of gods who commanded the seas. Thinks of the way she is a storm and yet he’s somehow able to hold her, here. She smiles at him and presses a kiss to his cheek. “For bringing me home.” Is all that she says before she’s grabbing his arm and lacing their fingers together, tugging him along the sand that has now cooled, squishing underneath their feet and he thinks, if he can have just one more minute of this calm, this _ peace_ that he could die happy, when that time would come. 

The sea watches them leave and he feels a tug in his heart, a song that he doesn’t’ know if she hears, but the way that Aqua’s eyes gleam as they make their way home – he thinks that the way the air crackles between them like thunder, that her heart is singing back to his, all the same. 

So he lets her pull him home, and wonders if the stars will let him remember this duet, the next time the darkness grabs a hold of his memories. 

He wonders if the sea will sing a hymn, to bring them both back home, one more time. 


End file.
